TRUTH BE TOLD

Friday, December 7, 2012

One piece of information that got lost the last few days of sex
scandals is the news that David Petraeus personally traveled to Libya
after the Benghazi attack — and apparently filed a “trip report”
covering his own findings. Senator Dianne Feinstein, who heads the
Senate Intelligence Committee probing the Benghazi terrorist attack,
wants either the report or Petraeus to testify to its contents. So far,
though, the CIA and the White House have refused to provide it — and
yesterday, Feinstein threatened that subpoenas may be forthcoming if the stonewalling continues:

“The premise is not necessarily an investigation,”
Feinstein said, speaking of an investigation into Petraeus. “The premise
is to see exactly what happened. I believe that Director Petraeus made a
trip to the region, shortly before this became public. I believe that
there is a trip report. We have asked to see the trip report. One person
tells me he has read it, and then we tried to get it and they tell me
it hasn’t been done. That’s unacceptable. We are entitled to this trip
report, and if we have to go to the floor of the Senate on a subpoena,
we will do just that.”
Host Andrea Mitchell asked Feinstein for clarification, and Feinstein explained that trip would include “relevant information.”
“Yes,” she replied. “For the very reason that it may have some very relevant information to what happened in Benghazi.”

This seems more than passingly curious. Why wouldn’t the
CIA share the trip report with Feinstein? First of all, the
Congressional intelligence committees in both chambers are entitled to
see it as part of their oversight responsibilities over the agency,
especially given the fact that the report comes after a terrorist attack
that Congress has an obvious interest in investigating. On top of
that, Feinstein and the Senate committee are arguably a more friendly
venue than the House committees looking into the attack.
This lack of openness, coming on the heels of the revelations of
Petraeus’ affair and his resignation, will only raise more questions
about why Petraeus is no longer testifying, and why he was so quick to
get out of the way. When a Democratic Senator has to go on MSNBC to
threaten a Democratic administration with a subpoena, well …. it should
raise a few eyebrows.